


Lost

by writeitininkorinblood



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: M/M, Memory Loss, mention of domestic abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-03
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-03-26 06:25:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 22,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13851948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writeitininkorinblood/pseuds/writeitininkorinblood
Summary: Fjord is pretty sure he's never seen the scruffy man in the long coat anywhere before in his life





	1. Chapter 1

Caleb tended to not be too upset when things they were fighting fled. It meant the fight was over and that they had provided enough of a threat that their enemy thought it better to run rather than stand their ground. So when the mage they’d been up against cast a teleportation spell and disappeared from the tower they’d had him cornered in, he wasn’t too disappointed. Jester was stamping her foot and Beau looked more than ready to keep fighting, but he was ready for a rest.

Scanning the room for Fjord, Caleb’s eyes fell on where the warlock was lying on the ground and rubbing his head with a groan as he tried to sit up. He’d taken the last of the mage’s spells and it didn’t look like it had been pleasant. Ignoring Molly and Jester’s bickering about whether to go after the spellcaster and winking at Nott as she methodically searched through drawers for shiny things she could pilfer, he walked over and sat beside Fjord on the cold stone floor, content to let the rest of their little group decide what to do next.

Instead of the arm around his shoulders and maybe a kiss on the cheek he’d usually get, Caleb found a falchion pressed to the base of his neck. Fjord had moved lightning fast, rolling up onto his feet and standing over him, using every measure of half-orc intimidation he had.

“Who are you?” Fjord growled, pushing the weapon forward just enough that Caleb felt pain.

It wasn’t the first time Caleb had been physically threatened by a lover - he’d made bad decisions in the past, some necessary and some just misguided. He was small and slight and before he’d started learning magic, he hadn’t had a way of defending himself so he’d been an easy target. The last man who had laid a hand on him like that had felt the concentrated force of a fire spell, but this was Fjord. Caleb would never use his magic against him of his own free will. Except maybe right in that moment the man in front of him wasn’t exactly who he usually was, because there was an intense look of distrust in his eyes that Caleb had only ever seen levelled against people they knew were going to try and fuck them over. It was the first time he’d ever not felt safe looking into Fjord’s eyes, and a wave of chilling fear washed over him.  
“What?” he managed, trying to tilt his neck back away from the blade. If this was an attempt at a joke, it wasn’t a funny one. He’d prefer a thousand terrible puns.

“Hey!” Nott shrieked, running over and pushing Fjord’s sword away, standing in between him and Caleb. “What are you doing?”

Fjord peered at her, confused. For a moment Caleb was afraid he was going to point the falchion at her next, but then he sheathed it and leaned around her to look down at him. There was still no recognition in his eyes, and it pained Caleb more than he could say to not see the normal affection he’d find there. He climbed shakily to his feet, ignoring the fact that Fjord’s hand went back to the hilt of his weapon as he did, and placed his hands on Nott’s shoulders to reassure her everything was alright, even if he wasn’t convinced himself.  
“Get away from her,” Fjord warned, suddenly pulling the blade again.

“He’s not going to hurt me!” Nott protested, stepping back towards Caleb until she was pressed against his legs. Now he was standing she couldn’t do much to get between them, but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t try.

“Okay, I’m taking that,” Molly butted in, grabbing the weapon from Fjord and holding it behind his back. “Before you skewer someone.”

The entire party was watching them now, no one understanding what was happening. Fjord whirled around but he relaxed slightly when he realised it was Molly who had taken the weapon. His eyes flickered between every member of their party, concerned by the way everyone was looking at him like he was crazy. They were the ones ignoring the scruffy man in the long coat who had seemingly appeared from nowhere, in the tower they’d just fought a powerful mage. Did they really not see how likely it was that he could be an accomplice?  
“Fjord, I-” Caleb tried, reaching out. When Fjord just flinched powerfully away from him, taking a step towards Jester, he sighed and returned his hand to Nott’s shoulder. She could sense he was afraid and confused and put her hand over his, patting gently without taking her eyes off of Fjord.

It was Jester who spoke first, sounding as confused as Caleb felt.

“You don’t know him?” she asked gently, aware Fjord was spooked.

Turning round to appraise Caleb carefully in case he’d misplaced a memory where he’d met the man before, Fjord racked his brains. Had they run into him in one of the towns they’d been in? No, he was too attractive to blend into the background – Fjord was sure he would have remembered those eyes.  
“Should I?” he sighed, completely at a loss.

Caleb drew as far into his coat as he could manage, trying to hide from what was happening. This had to be some kind of magic, but it was nothing he’d ever heard of and that meant he didn’t know how to fix it. He was itching to get his hands on a book and start researching – he just wanted Fjord to recognise him again.  
“Yes. Yes, you should,” Molly said. He handed the falchion back to Fjord now he was pretty sure it wasn’t going to end up severing Caleb’s jugular. “He’s your-”

“Friend,” Caleb interrupted quickly.

Beau just snorted. It was about as believable as the first time he’d tried to hide his and Fjord’s relationship from them all.  
“Caleb, it might help him remember,” Jester pushed.  
“No,” he said, resolutely shaking his head. He didn’t want Fjord to know exactly how big a thing he had forgotten.

Only Fjord was listening intently, narrowing his eyes when he realised this strange man was keeping secrets.  
“What is it? What are you hiding?” he demanded.

Caleb glared at Jester but she just shrugged. He had a right to know the truth, in her opinion. With Fjord looking at him with so much scepticism, Caleb couldn’t make eye contact as he tried to explain what they were to each other.  
“You are… We are…” he trailed off, unsure how to word it.

“You were dating,” Beau supplied, rolling her eyes. Sometimes it was necessary to intrude on the two of them or they never got things done. If they’d all left them to their own devices when they’d been crushing on each other, they still wouldn’t be together.

Caleb flinched at the past tense. But you couldn’t be in a relationship with someone who didn’t know who you were, so maybe everything was over. The realisation hit Caleb so hard that he had to sit down, numbly registering the fact that Nott was hugging him. He didn’t have that many people in his life who cared about him, and even fewer who loved him. Jester constantly reminded him of how much love she had for him (and everyone), and Nott didn’t have to say it but he knew from the way she still gave him coins she’d swiped so he could buy books. But Fjord? Fjord was different. Fjord was _in love_ with him, and would kiss him awake every morning when he wanted to burrow under the pillow and sleep for another hour, or tempt him away from books and into eating a hot meal, or hold him close when the world got too much to handle. Except Fjord had looked at him with an icy stare, void of any warmth or affection, and held a blade to this throat that had pushed at his skin until Caleb could imagine it tearing right through. The man he trusted more than anything remembered nothing.

Fjord took a step back at Beau’s words, as shocked as Caleb was numb. He looked over at the man now sat on the floor and tried to remember being in a relationship with him, but no memories surfaced. As far back as he could remember, this man had not been in his life.  
“…Dating?” he stammered, turning back to Jester for confirmation.  
“In love, having loud sex at inconvenient times, everything,” she said with a nod.

Caleb managed to collect himself together enough to glare up at her. That wasn’t the first information he wanted Fjord to learn, and they’d been loud exactly _once_ when they’d been too caught up in each other to remember to cast a silencing spell. It had been just their luck that the walls of that particular tavern were thin.

All the blood had rushed to Fjord’s cheeks and he couldn’t stop himself from staring at Caleb. He’d slept with this man? Surely that couldn’t be right, there was no way he would have forgotten. He tried to sift through his thoughts again, but there was nothing, nor were there any gaps he could imagine time with Caleb would have fit into. It was seamless.  
“Are you sure?” he asked, not even sure who he was addressing the question to.

All of his friends nodded, but the first verbal answer came from the ground.  
“Yes,” Caleb said, attempting to keep his voice firm but unable to stop it wavering a little.

Fjord just looked at where he had curled in on himself, trying to pretend this wasn’t all happening. He tentatively took a step towards him, holding up his hands in surrender when Caleb looked up fast with terror in his eyes. In all fairness to the man, he had just threatened him with a weapon against his throat. Kneeling down, Fjord reached out to rest his fingers on Caleb’s knee. He could tell from the way Caleb relaxed against his touch that they’d done this countless time before and he was struck with a moment of fear that he had no recollection of any of them. What other memories had been taken from him?

“Why don’t I remember you?” he asked quietly.

There was finally softness in Fjord’s eyes, even if it wasn’t the usual affection, and Caleb wanted to cry. If it were any other time, Fjord would be hugging him, but strangers didn’t hug and that’s what he was to Fjord now.  
“I wish I knew,” he whispered. Tearing himself away from Fjord, he looked up at the rest of his friends. “Does everyone else know who I am?”  
“Of course, you’re Caleb,” Nott piped up quickly, still not having left his side.

Caleb ruffled her hair and hugged her close with one arm. If she had forgotten him too, he’d be far more unsteady. She was the closest he had to family.

“Yup, our squishy wizard,” Beau confirmed, nudging his foot with her boot in an attempt to shake him from his near-stupefaction.  

“Stinky wizard,” Jester corrected with a smile, clearly referencing something Fjord didn’t understand.

He looked from person to person, seeing them all confirm that they did in fact know this man he’d never seen before. It was very clear there was some kind of magic messing with his brain and he wasn’t comfortable with the idea. Did someone else have his memories of Caleb? Could they see an entire relationship he couldn’t even remember? Turning back, he slowly reached up to smooth over the soft skin at the base of Caleb’s neck where he’d pressed the blade. It hadn’t broken the skin, but he still felt bad about it. The fact that Caleb was just letting him touch him so intimately, even after what he’d done, told him so much.

“I’m sorry I hurt you. Sorry I threatened you,” he said, ducking his head with regret. He had just wanted to keep his friends safe, but apparently Caleb was a friend too. More than a friend.

It was strange for Caleb to know Fjord wasn’t contextualising his own touches in the way same he was. He wasn’t connecting it to the nights they spent together, or the long periods of time they went without staying in a tavern and touches were rationed for lack of privacy. So, he gently pushed Fjord’s hand away. It didn’t feel right.

He cleared his throat. “Thank you for protecting Nott.”

Although he wasn’t a fan of his boyfriend holding a weapon to his neck, it always made him happy to know that someone would look after his little goblin friend if ever got taken down and Jester wasn’t there to help him back up.

Fjord just nodded, but before they could continue their awkward conversation, Molly interrupted.

“We should get out of here,” he suggested. The mage could come back at any moment and if they wanted a proper chance to take him down, getting surprised by him wasn’t going to help. Getting back to the tavern they were staying at to recoup, fix Fjord, and plan was the best option.

“Wait, maybe we should…” Caleb began, forcing his legs to work as he climbed to his feet. “There might be something here to help.”

It was undoubtedly the mage who had done this to Fjord, to both of them, and Caleb wanted more than anything to watch him burn for it, but the key to unlocking Fjord’s memories might be quicker found with research than with revenge.  
“I got all the books for you!” Nott promised, patting the bag of holding she always kept near. She knew Caleb particularly liked magical books, but she couldn’t read half the languages of the titles to work out which were magical and which were cookbooks or other mundane volumes, so she’d been sure to throw all of them into the bag for him to sort through when they’d left.

Caleb smiled for the first time since the battle, kissing Nott’s forehead. He’d be lost without her.

“Then yes, let’s leave,” he agreed.

Walking down the steps of the tower with dancing lights above his head so he could see where to put his feet, Caleb considered something that terrified him to his core: what if there was no coming back from this? What if Fjord never got his memories back at all?


	2. Chapter 2

The walk back was awkward at best. Fjord kept his distance from Caleb, wary about their whole predicament. It was easier to not have to face him for a while, so he walked with Jester instead, answering question after question she threw at him in an attempt to find out what he still knew.

“Do you remember Nott?” she asked, gesturing back to where the goblin was walking with Caleb several steps behind. Fjord didn’t turn around.  
“Of course,” he shrugged.  
“Where did we find her?” Jester pressed.

This was a particularly strange line of questioning, from Fjord’s perspective. He knew he hadn’t forgotten Nott. As far as he could tell it was only Caleb who was missing from his memories.

“A tavern. The morning before we went to the circus. She helped us in the fight against those zombies, and she stuck around.”

He tried to give as much detail as he could so Jester would know he was telling the truth. But the questions kept coming.  
“Was she alone in that tavern?”  
“Yes.”  
“What about Frumpkin?”

Okay, that one was strange. Who or what was a Frumpkin? It seemed like the kind of thing Jester would make up, so he gave her a withering look and rolled his eyes. But she just sighed sadly.

“So you don’t remember anything about Caleb?” she said, coming to her final conclusion.

So a Frumpkin was something to do with Caleb? Fjord made a mental note to ask what it was later. He wanted to at least fill in some of what he’d lost and he had to start somewhere.  
“It feels like I’ve never met him before in my life,” he confirmed.  
“But-” Jester started, ready to argue that Fjord _had_ known Caleb. She didn’t get any further before Caleb surged forward and put a hand on her arm to make her turn around,

“Stop. Jester, by the gods, please stop,” he begged. He’d been listening in to the conversation and slowly dying inside at each question she’d been asking, but he’d reached the end of what he could bear.

The constant reminders that Fjord remembered everything and everyone else except him was too painful. Except Frumpkin, but there was no Frumpkin without Caleb so it made sense that Fjord had forgotten the cat too. Caleb had summoned him earlier and he was now curled up on his shoulders, purring next to his ear. It was comforting, but it didn’t make the ache in his heart go away.

“I just want to see…” Jester protested, but she trailed off when she saw the anguish in Caleb’s eyes. If they were going to talk about what Fjord could and couldn’t remember, it was probably both kinder and safer to do it where they weren’t going to be overheard. “I’m sorry.”

It wasn’t often that he got a genuine apology from Jester, so Caleb was a little surprised. It only spoke to how bad and confusing the situation they were in was. Fjord still hadn’t even glanced at him since they’d left the tower, and he couldn’t say it didn’t hurt. He was used to turning around to find the man looking at him with a kind of wistful desire in his eyes, like he was sorry they weren’t alone at that moment. Or sharing a grin with him, maybe a sigh if Jester or Beau was doing something stupid. He hadn’t realised how much he casually connected with Fjord throughout a day until it was abruptly gone.

The rest of their journey back to civilisation went by in silence. Jester didn’t ask Fjord any more questions and no one was going to attempt to direct any to Caleb. The entire party was feeling the stress and no one wanted to make it worse. Even in silence, they walked quickly. Caleb was desperate to get back to the tavern and start to rifle through the books Nott had collected up. There had to be an answer in one of them. There just had to.

As soon as they were at the inn, Caleb headed upstairs. He couldn’t bring himself to go into the room he shared with Fjord, so he instead set himself up on the floor of Nott and Jester’s room and stacked up all the books on one side of him so he could go through them one by one. Nott tried to help but she didn’t know what Caleb was looking for, so she was somewhat limited to emotional support. She watched as he cast a quick spell with a pinch of salt and soot, before his eyes flashed over with orange arcane energy and he turned his attention to the books, suddenly able to read them all.

For every one volume that might be useful, four more were unrelated to the kind of spell that Fjord had endured. He ended up with a stack of books on necromancy, alchemical remedies and astrology to return to later out of curiosity when this was over, and a further heap of ballads and comic plays that he had no interest in. The pile of books that might help Fjord was only four volumes high, and all of them were in languages he couldn’t understand without arcane help. It was going to take a while to scour them for information, but he had to start somewhere so he flipped open the cover of the book on top and began to read.

He’d been buried in the book for almost an hour when Jester came up, barely having made a dent in the tome. Everything was so much slower when he was using magic to translate and he hated not being able to quickly scan pages with his usually speed and precision. It was stifling. He was almost grateful for Jester’s interruption, even if she was lacking her usual enthusiasm.  
She sat on the floor beside Nott, giving Caleb a small smile that was an attempt to be reassuring but really just looked worried.

“It’s nothing physical, and I’ve tried spells that should remove a charm. Nothing,” she explained, without introduction. It wasn’t like Caleb had been thinking about much else anyway.

Caleb sighed. He’d suspected as much, but it was good to try. Crossing things off a very long list of potential solutions was something, at least. If only if it was that simple, but it seemed like too strong a spell effect to be so easily removed. Dragging a hand down his face, Caleb nodded.  
“The only thing I know of that is similar is a spell to modify someone’s memory, but that only works for short windows of time. It should not be able to… remove me from his life like this,” he mumbled, crossing his arms around himself and holding on to his elbows tightly. He felt so helpless.  
“Have you checked him over? Just in case there’s something you can sense is wrong? You know him better than I do nowadays,” Jester suggested. She figured Caleb would be responsive to any magical additions to Fjord’s person.

Caleb just shook his head.

“He will not let me get close,” he said sadly. He’d noticed how Fjord had been keeping his distance and he couldn’t blame him. It must be strange for him to know a stranger had kissed him and slept with him and very intimately knew his way around his body. Had it been the other way around, Caleb was sure he himself would be in hiding.

“I’m sorry, Caleb,” Nott frowned, nudging his shoulder. She had been hoping this wouldn’t last longer than one evening for Caleb and Fjord, but it was turning into a bigger problem.  
“It is okay,” he said, reassuring them both best he could. “Or, it will be. Somehow.”

Between the two of them, Jester and Nott managed to convince him to take a break from reading and head downstairs for some food. Although they couldn’t talk him out of taking a book with him, along with his spell components pouch so he could recast his language translation spell. If nothing else, he could use the book to avoid talking to Fjord.

He managed a hello to the group but he quickly sat himself down at the table and reopened the book. Casting the spell was second nature and he did it almost absentmindedly, forgetting the way it made his eyes light up. He was reminded of the spark of magic when Fjord, watching his ritual spell casting with interest, jerked back and swore under his breath.

“What?” Beau asked, confused. She was so used to Caleb casting spells at the table that she hadn’t even noticed he was doing it.

“Nothing,” Fjord lied, shaking his head. He wasn’t going to admit that he hadn’t registered Caleb was a spellcaster, or that he found the flash of magic in his eyes incredibly attractive. He wondered how often he’d seen Caleb cast spells before and if it ever got old. Because he was pretty sure it wouldn’t.

Caleb could feel Fjord looking but he forced himself to keep his attention fixed on the book, eating with one hand and turning pages with the other. He could, and would, focus on Fjord when they’d fixed this. Reading had to come first.

Thirty pages of the book later, he still hadn’t learned anything useful. Memory spells kept coming up, but they were all only things that could modify small sections of time. Nothing came close to the months that would have to be altered to remove him from Fjord’s life entirely. Frustration was starting to set in. His foot was tapping up and down under the table and he was digging his fingernails into his palms, the stress mounting up with each page he turned. Eventually he had to leave. He knew his entire group of friends was picking up on his dark vibes and he couldn’t handle Fjord watching him so intently, so he collected up his book and components and excused himself. As he got up to leave, he almost lent over to kiss Fjord on the cheek before catching himself and realising that he wasn’t allowed to do that anymore. Because, to Fjord, it wasn’t their normally nightly routine, it was just some stranger getting too close and being far too affectionate. This was more difficult than he could ever have imagined.


	3. Chapter 3

Knowing Fjord was downstairs, Caleb took his chance to head back to the room they had shared to collect his things. This felt painfully like a breakup, and he supposed in some ways it was one. He just never envisaged what he had with Fjord ending like this. Never envisaged it ending at all, really. Molly had always said that he didn’t do ‘conventional relationships’ because they all ended in either death or a breakup so what was even the point, but Caleb had always rather liked the idea of being with someone until the end of his life, whenever that came along. And recently that someone had been Fjord.

It didn’t Caleb too long to grab his things from around the room – he didn’t have all that much. Everything fit into one bag and he was shouldering it when he heard someone clear their throat behind him. He didn’t have to turn to know who would be stood behind him, so he didn’t bother. After a few seconds, Fjord broke the silence.

“You sleep here?” he asked, before realising that it was a stupid question. If they were dating like everyone kept telling him then of course Caleb slept with him, he just had _no memory_ of anyone ever sleeping beside him in that bed. It was unnerving.

Taking a deep breath to steel himself for this conversation, Caleb turned.  
“Normally, yes. But I am bunking in with Nott again, like I did before… us,” he explained, shifting his weight awkwardly between his feet.

Fjord took a second to look at Caleb. He looked tired, worn down, and he wasn’t sure how much of that was this spell and how much of it was persistent regardless. It made him want to tuck the man into bed and force him to get some rest. Something told him Caleb and sleep weren’t all that well acquainted.  

“I want to remember,” Fjord sighed, taking a step closer. He wanted to know what this life where he was in a relationship with a skinny wizard with beautiful eyes was like, because he had a funny hunch that it was really rather wonderful.  
“Well there is not a lot we can do about that,” Caleb swallowed awkwardly. “Not tonight.” He had plans to continue researching all night, but even then he’d probably need to find specific components to dispel the effect and it would take time. He hadn’t slept alone in months but he was going to have to get used to it.  
“I’m sorry,” Fjord said, genuine pain in his eyes. If he’d resisted the spell’s effects or if they defeated the mage faster… They could have avoided all of this.  
“Not your fault,” Caleb shrugged.

It could have happened to any of them – Fjord had just been unlucky. Except… near the start of the fight Caleb had taken a hit from a spell, nothing too painful but forceful enough to knock him off his feet, and he’d heard Fjord yell out his name in panic before he could get back up. He wondered whether the mage had known exactly what he’d been doing when he’d cast the memory spell. It made Caleb feel sick.

Fjord took a step closer, aware they were both awkwardly hovering and the door was wide open. This had to be strange for Caleb, who was probably used to an easy existence between the two of them.

“It’s just weird knowing that you know so much about me and I barely know your name,” Fjord said, frowning.

Caleb hated it when Fjord looked like that. He wanted to kiss the frown away and distract him from himself, but that wasn’t an option anymore. All he could do was talk.  
“Caleb Widogast,” he answered automatically.

Fjord wasn’t sure he’d heard the surname yet, but he liked it. It seemed to suit the man in front of him. He repeated the name under his breath, wondering how many times he’d said it before and forgotten. The list of things he knew about his apparent boyfriend was slowly growing. The other newest article was what Caleb had done at dinner.

“You do magic,” he remembered, abruptly. When Caleb couldn’t hold back a laugh, he raised an eyebrow. “Why is that funny?”  
“You always were impressed,” Caleb shrugged with a small smile.

Even when Fjord had seen every trick in Caleb’s book, he still got this besotted look in his eye when he watched him do something as mundane as lighting a campfire with a click of his fingers, or sending dancing lights up to the ceiling to brighten their room.

Fjord flinched at the reminder of a past he couldn’t remember and he suddenly felt the need to know it all.

“Tell me something?” he asked with a hint of desperation that Caleb didn’t miss. “Anything I’ve forgotten.”

Thinking for a moment, Caleb tried to decide what to share. There were months and months of memories that would take forever to recount, and he knew Fjord probably remembered half of them differently anyway. So he just focused on little things that stuck out to him for reasons he couldn’t explain. The things he was missing the most.  
“You laugh when Jester braids my hair. You kiss the corner of my mouth to make me smile. After we got together we tried to keep it a secret from the rest of the group, which lasted only two days,” he said, trying not to show how much he felt like crying.

There was one last thing that came to mind and he wasn’t sure whether he should share it, but what did he have left to lose? He wanted Fjord to know. So he dropped his bag back to the ground and tugged the collar of his shirt to the side to reveal a purple and blue mark.

“You left this mark last night."

Fjord’s eyes widened as he took in the bruise on Caleb’s collar bone - it was only small and light but it was undoubtedly a hickey. He felt a strange shot of jealousy stab through him, which he knew was ridiculous considering he’d apparently been the one to mark Caleb’s skin, and since he barely even knew this man. It was all too confusing. Still, he liked the sight. That he knew.

Trying to shrug off the confusion he was feeling, he pretended to be more blasé than he really felt.  
“How do I know you’re not making it all up?” he said, crossing his arms.

Caleb’s eyes narrowed. So Fjord wanted proof? He could do that.  
“When you were a child you used to think ghosts were fiction. You were also scared of water – ironic, really. You have a dark green birthmark on your left hip – you squirm when I kiss it.”

The sentences came out sharp and almost angry. He’d never imagined a time where he’d have to convince his boyfriend that they’d been dating, but here he was. He could have kept going, sentence after sentence of things he knew about a man who didn’t even recognise him anymore, but his hands started shaking at his sides and he needed to breathe.

Fjord’s hand went to his own leg, tracing over where Caleb knew the mark was. It was impossible for him to deny that this man he'd never seen before knew him better than anyone else in the world. Whatever relationship they’d had, it seemed like it had been a good one. One full of trust and intimacy and affection.

“I _really_ want to remember,” he groaned.

“I want you to remember too but it looks like we are both out of luck,” Caleb shrugged, his eyes pricking with tears as he grabbed his bag and headed for the doorway. He needed to put some distance between them before he went crazy.  
“Caleb, wait!” Fjord protested, catching his hand as he walked past. “I know this can’t be easy for you.”

Caleb looked down at where their fingers were interlocked. He hadn’t realised how often they casually they touched until he’d had to actively stop himself from doing it, and he missed it. It wasn’t like they used to be glued at the hip, but their fingers would invariably graze together if Fjord was passing him something, or Fjord would brush a piece of hair back from his face that he hadn’t even noticed was in his eyes. All innocent, and now all gone.

“Not exactly,” Caleb swallowed, looking determinedly at the floor.

Fjord wanted to fix this. He wished there were a way to flip a switch and undo whatever had been done to his memories, but it was never that easy when it came to magic. He scrambled for something that would help, and only one thing came to mind.  
“Can I… Would you feel better if I kissed you?” he asked softly.

Said aloud, it sounded ridiculous. Even if Caleb was attractive and sad and perfectly kissable, it didn’t seem sensible when they both knew there was something wrong. Still, if it was something Caleb wanted then he’d do it. Anything to help him with this.

Blinking, Caleb was convinced he’d misheard. He desperately wanted to be able to kiss Fjord again, but he wouldn’t have thought Fjord would be willing to kiss a stranger. This seemed like the moment where they decided how they were going to navigate this entire situation. They could either fall into an awkward, unstable ghost of a relationship, which didn’t seem particularly fair on Fjord, or they could keep their distance until everything came back and then make up for the time they’d lost. The latter, while emotionally draining for the time being, made so much more sense that Caleb couldn’t deny it.  
“No,” he shook his head. “Not like this. Not while you do not know who I am. We are going to fix this, and then you can kiss me all you want.”

He couldn’t imagine kissing Fjord without all the tiny things they’d learned about what each other liked. He knew Fjord liked gentle bites on his lower lip and hands on his hips, and Fjord knew he liked fingers running though his hair and being as close as possible and whispered endearments against his lips. Or, he had known. Kissing would feel too alien now, and he wasn’t sure he could bear it.

“Goodnight, Fjord,” he said with a nod, detangling their fingers and escaping out of the door and across the hallway before another word was shared.  
“Goodnight, Caleb,” Fjord whispered after him. He knew he couldn’t be heard, but he just wanted to say the name. Caleb. Caleb. Caleb. If he repeated it enough times, maybe he’d remember something.

 -

Jester and Nott had been quick to let him sleep in their shared room. They only had one bed, with Jester sleeping in it like a regular person and Nott curling up at the foot of it like a cat, and Caleb was adamant he wasn’t going to impose on them so he assured them he could take the floor. He returned to his books, more determined than ever to find a solution, floating a dancing light above the pages so he could see the text. Frumpkin swiped at it several times as usual, so he absentmindedly conjured another one for him to bat at in the corner.

He kept researching for as long as he could, despite both girls trying to convince him to get some sleep once they came up from the tavern. After the battle they’d fought earlier he only had the energy left to cast his translation spell once more, and when the words on the page started to shift back to nonsense scribbles he slammed the cover shut and threw it at the floor beneath his feet. Usually he’d been more careful, but the more he read and didn’t find anything useful, the more he was starting to panic.

“Caleb?” Nott asked gently, clearly worried. He could see her yellow eyes peeking down at him from the edge of the bed.

“I’m fine. I need to rest,” Caleb said, forcing himself to stay calm. He wasn’t going to be of any use to anyone if he couldn’t relax a little.

“Good. Goodnight. It’s going to be okay,” Nott promised, although she wasn’t sure she could guarantee it. But they were all alive and together so they’d get through it somehow. That was just what they did.

Caleb tried to sleep, really he did. But lying on a cold, hard wooden floor made him feel so alone. He was used to resting his head on Fjord’s chest to use him as a pillow, hearing his heart beat and falling asleep to the rhythm of it. There would be arms wrapped around him, keeping him so warm he barely needed a blanket. Sometimes he’d complain about it, but he was pretty sure that when he got his Fjord back, he was never going to say another word against it for as long as he lived.

Now his mind wasn’t going as fast as a humming bird’s wings, all the emotion he’d been fighting to hold back poured forth. Within moments his shoulders were shaking from withheld sobs and he was trying to stay as quiet as possible as he cried so he wouldn’t disturb anyone. He should have known Nott would pick up on the small sniffling noises he was making and she was out of bed, draping her blanket around him and hugging him, before he knew what was happening.

When she felt Nott move, Jester decided that she didn’t have to pretend to be asleep anymore either and sat up.

“Don’t worry, Caleb. Fjord is way too in love with you to just forget _forever_ ,” she promised, and then she too was on the floor next to him, patting at his hair.

Frumpkin equally seemed to sense his anguish, since there was a cat nuzzling against his face and rubbing away his tears with its fur. Caleb couldn’t help a sad bubble of laughter. It was slightly easier not to cry when he was surrounded by his friends. While he hated seeming so weak, he knew he needed the emotional support. With their help, he was going to get through this.

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A shorter chapter, because it was the only convenient place to break before this became super long.

When morning came round, Caleb wasn’t sure whether he could bring himself to face Fjord. Nott tried to persuade him to come down from breakfast with the promise of bacon, but he managed to convince her that he wanted to get started on reading more of the books they’d found – and to be fair he did. After an hour of scanning through page after page only to find transmutation spells and a detailed description of using them as a form of torture, something Caleb thought he might actually prefer to what he was currently going through, he felt his first translation spell of the day start to fade.

He was alone in the room save for Frumpkin, with both Jester and Nott having left him to actually be social. The cat had curled up on an open book next to him but had thankfully chosen one he didn’t need. He liked to think that he could understand how important this research was and was purposefully not hindering it. Absentmindedly scratching Frumpkin under the chin with one hand, Caleb rifled through his bag with the other in search of food. It had been a while since he’d eaten anything significant – the night before he’d picked at his food whilst still researching. Other than a doughnut far too far past its best to consider eating that he was pretty sure Jester had left for him, there was nothing. For a moment he thought about forgetting food and returning to his books, but his stomach was starting to ache and he knew he had to eat something. Fjord would- well, no, Fjord probably wouldn’t care anymore. But the old Fjord would have scolded him gently for not taking care of himself and then bribed him with the promises of either kisses or more books until he ate something. Clearly the message of self-preservation had eventually started to sink in.

Groaning, Caleb considered going downstairs. He didn’t want to see Fjord. He didn’t want to see any of his friends. All he would get would be looks of pity and he couldn’t take it. Part of him was angry that they weren’t helping him research, but realistically he knew they couldn’t understand the books he was reading. Except… Fjord could. Caleb had taught him the translation spell once, even if he rarely ever cast it. Still, he couldn’t bring himself to ask. The less he saw of Fjord while everything was still wrong like this, the better.

Frumpkin meowed, demanding Caleb go back to petting him. Automatically, he did, knowing his fingers would get nipped if he ignored the order, but as he scratched behind the cat’s ears he remembered something very specific the cat could do.

“Hey, buddy, can you go downstairs for me? See if any of my friends are in the tavern? And I’m going to look through your eyes, okay?” he asked aloud, despite the fact Frumpkin could understand him telepathically just fine. It was a force of habit.

It was possibly a testament to how harried he felt that Frumpkin seemed to nod. Opening the door, Caleb watched the cat slink down the hallway to the stairs, waiting a little while until he would be down in the tavern. He shut himself back in the room and slid the lock on the door across. Usually he hated going deaf and blind to his own form without Nott or Fjord beside him, but he was pretty confident he was somewhere safe and it wouldn’t be for long. So he closed his eyes and concentrated, feeling the familiar rush as his consciousness was projected out of his body and he could suddenly see the tavern from about calf height to most of the patrons.  
Frumpkin seemed to know exactly where he was going, crossing the room until he reached a table in the corner and jumping up onto it. Suddenly Caleb found himself looking at an amused Molly and a very surprised Fjord.

“Holy-” Fjord got out, before cutting himself off when he realised it was just a cat.

“He’s Caleb’s,” Molly shrugged. He reached out to pet Frumpkin, but he gave him a look that Caleb knew was for him – Molly was completely aware of what he was doing, but he didn’t seem to be about to turn him in to Fjord, who was none the wiser in his Caleb-ignorant state.

“So, what do I do?” Fjord asked, seemingly returning to a previous conversation.

He was holding a half empty mug of ale, something Caleb was surprised to see him drinking, but there were two smaller glasses that he bet had contained whiskey at some point. It was pretty rare to see Fjord drowning his sorrows, especially before midday, and Caleb felt a twinge of sadness that this was hard on him too. Only any comfort he could give probably wouldn’t be appreciated all that much right now.  
“I honestly don’t know.” Molly sighed. The entire party wanted to help, but they had no idea where to even start.  
“Do I pretend to remember?” Fjord suggested.

“No,” Molly said quickly, giving Frumpkin a glance. “Caleb would hate that. Don’t lie to him.”

He was right. Caleb felt sick just at the idea. There was no way it would be a charade that Fjord would be able to keep up for long – he might be charming and charismatic but he couldn’t pretend to know the intimate workings of an entire relationship without giving the game away over a detail he didn’t remember. Caleb wanted Fjord back, but only if it was real.

Fjord groaned and put his head in his hands.  
“I just don’t want him to be upset. This whole thing is the worst,” he said, his voice muffled through his fingers. He looked up just enough that he could see Molly and Caleb could see his pleading eyes. “Would you tell me about him some more?”  
“There’s not a lot left to tell,” Molly smiled.  
“Then repeat some of the old stuff. Just try to jog my memory. Please.”

With that, Caleb had to pull his consciousness back to his own body. So Fjord had been asking about him? He wondered what Molly had shared and couldn’t help but wish it was good things. Still, you couldn’t base a relationship on hearsay. Molly didn’t know anything about what they’d talked about in private. The only way to get back to what they were was to reverse the spell.

Deciding food could wait a little longer until the tavern was empty of his friends, Caleb returned to his reading. After three more hours, he got to the end of the first book and set it aside, immediately picking up the next one in the pile and starting at the beginning again. There had to be something in one of them, there just had to.

*

It was three days later when he finally turned the last page of the last potentially helpful book he’d collected from the mage’s tower. He’d mostly kept to the room at the tavern, accepting food when it was brought to him but never venturing out for it himself. Nott had whispered to him that Fjord had offered to be the one to take it to him once, but that she’d turned the offer down because she didn’t know if it would upset him. Caleb had never been more grateful to not see him.

Not a single one of the books was helpful. A couple mentioned memory spells, but nothing specific enough to be what they were currently enduring, nor anything Caleb thought might be easily adapted to cause the distinct effects. He knew his friends were starting to get bored with staying put. Nott was tolerating pinching baubles from visitors to the tavern, but Beau was itching to get moving and Molly was always better on the road. Besides, they had a finite amount of money and they couldn’t stay in a tavern forever, especially if they weren’t making any more coin. When Jester had tentatively suggested they head back to Zadash to see if they could find anyone who might know more about the arcane and be able to help them, Caleb had to admit it was the best plan they had.

Travelling meant seeing Fjord, but Caleb did his best to keep his distance. He turned Frumpkin back into a bird and spent a lot of time sat in the wagon with Nott at his side, scouting ahead through his eyes. When he was in his own head he was either reading, going over the mage’s books again in case he’d missed something, or sleeping. The less he had to endure seeing a lack of recognition in Fjord’s eyes, the saner he could stay.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know the whole Caleb having a fear of water thing has been disproved but I like it so I'm keeping it in this fic.

It was the most awkward journey Fjord could remember. When Caleb was depressed, it affected everyone – his pain radiated out of him and it made Fjord want to protect him from everything. Only the threat wasn’t physical and there was nothing he could do but keep his distance, which was what Caleb seemed to want. They just had to make it to Zadash and someone would be able to fix this and give him all his memories back. He’d gotten as much information from Molly about Caleb as he could, and then he’d gone to Jester and asked the same questions just in case, but it still all felt so alien.

Molly had told him about how they’d met Caleb and as much of his history as he felt he could share without the wizard’s permission, but Jester had taken a different route. She’d grinned and recounted how he would leave hickeys on Caleb’s neck and he’d end up wearing his scarf in the middle of summer, or how Caleb would sit between his legs and lean back against his chest to rest against him as he read. It was all things he could _imagine_ himself doing, but nothing he actually _remembered_ doing. Just thinking about it made his mind spin, so mainly he tried not to.

Caleb was still avoiding him. He would read all day, the same books over and over just in case he’d missed something, and then go to sleep before everyone else only to get up early and start again. They were three nights into their trip when he started to mumble in his sleep.

Everyone else was still sat around the campfire and Fjord didn’t think anything of it until he noticed the rest of the party wincing, like they knew what was coming. Before he had time to ask, Caleb’s sleep talking got louder until he could make out individual words. _No. Stop. Please._ And then sentences. _I’ve told you everything._ Frozen, Fjord could do little more than watch on as Caleb screamed out, his body writhing up like he was fighting against something, or someone.

“What do we do?” he asked earnestly, turning back to his friends with tears collecting in the corners of his eyes. It hurt to see Caleb in pain.

“Well, usually he goes to you,” Jester explained gently, putting her hands over her ears so she didn’t have to listen to Caleb suffer. She wasn’t sure exactly what Fjord did to comfort him, but she knew it had been going on even before they’d been dating and that he was the only one who could manage it.

Oh. So this was a regular occurrence, and Caleb trusted him enough to let him help best he could. Fjord wasn’t quite sure what to do with that information but as he sat there, Caleb cried out again and he knew he couldn’t do nothing. He awkwardly climbed to his feet and gestured towards Caleb.

“Do you think it would help?” he said, desperate to try something.

His friends exchanged looks, like they weren’t sure either, but Nott eventually shrugged and turned back to him.

“He’ll tell you if he wants you to leave,” she explained, her eyes wet. She didn’t like seeing Caleb in pain either. “Just be careful when you wake him up, sometimes he lashes out.”

Fjord nodded and filed the information into his ever-growing mental folder of information about Caleb, before walking over to his bedroll and kneeling carefully beside him. Caleb was still thrashing around under his blanket, his face twisted into agony and his hands clenched into fists.

“Caleb?” he tried, reaching out to gently rest his hand on the wizard’s arm. If he could have remembered everything that people were telling him had happened between them, he’d have brushed his knuckles down Caleb’s cheek and would already be holding him tight, but there were messy, complicated new boundaries to navigate and he knew Caleb had mixed feelings about being touched by a boyfriend who couldn’t even remember they were dating, so he aired on the side of caution.

The touch was enough to bring Caleb abruptly out of his nightmare, hyperventilating with wild eyes that scanned around presumably for whoever had been torturing him, because that was Fjord was pretty sure had been happening. When he found a familiar face, he threw himself forward into Fjord’s arms, tears running down his cheeks as he buried his face against his chest and tried to control his breathing. Only then he remembered.

“You do not even know what is wrong,” he said bitterly, pushing away from Fjord and wrapping his arms around his own knees instead as he took deep gasps of air. He always needed to remind himself how it felt to breathe after one of those dreams.

“No, that's true,” Fjord admitted sadly. He was pretty sure he had known at one point. “Do you want to tell me?”

“No,” Caleb sighed, clutching tighter at his knees to try and make himself as small as possible. He wanted Fjord to know, but he didn’t want to have to repeat the story again. It was bad enough seeing the look in Fjord’s eyes the first time he’d heard it – all pity and pain and a possessive desire to protect that Caleb liked more than he ever admitted.

Fjord wasn’t sure what else to do. If he didn’t know what the problem was then it was difficult to provide emotional reassurance, so the only thing he really had to offer was physical reassurance and Caleb wasn’t such a big fan of that, at least for the time being.

“Do you want a hug?” he asked, knowing the offer sounded pathetic but making it anyway. It probably wouldn’t make things worse to try.

There were still tears in Caleb’s eyes and he was shaking in a way he knew was difficult to calm by himself. He almost said no, almost sent Fjord back to where their friends were pretending not to be listening in to everything that was happening, but he wanted to act like nothing was wrong, just for a little while. So, he shuffled forward again until he could curl up against Fjord’s chest and hide in his own little bubble until the memory of how it felt to be choked to death on water, only to be revived to start the process all over again, subsided.

Fjord instinctively put his arms around Caleb, holding him tight and rubbing circles onto his back. From the way the wizard sighed and relaxed a little, it seemed like he was doing the right thing. He could feel how skinny Caleb was in his arms and made a note to make sure he started taking longer reading breaks to eat some decent food, but he could also feel the sobs racking through his body and he automatically started to make reassuring noises. When he started to hum a song he remembered from his time on the sea, Caleb tensed up in his arms and for a second he was worried he’d done something wrong and immediately went silent.

“You remember?” Caleb asked, confused. “How do you remember?”  
“What?” Fjord furrowed his brow. He had a few melodies that still floated around in his head every now and then, he’d just picked the calmest one he knew because he didn’t know that he’d be able to come up with sufficient words that wouldn’t just make things worse.

“That is what you… Before…” Caleb explained, not wanting to get specific. He already felt like he’d been through hell enough for one night and he didn’t want to remind himself of the other ways his life was presently awful.  
“Oh, really?” Fjord blinked. It had seemed like a random decision, but maybe it was some kind of reflex that the spell hadn’t gotten to. “Should I stop?”

Caleb considered for a moment, before shaking his head and relaxing again.

“No. Keep going,” he mumbled. “And stay with me.”

Fjord’s eyes went wide at the request, but he wasn’t about to say no. Logically he knew he’d slept with Caleb hundreds of times, but he was still jittery as he shuffled so he was lying on one side of Caleb’s bedroll with a tired, shaken bundle of wizard in his arms. Within minutes, Caleb was asleep again, breathing softly against his neck. If he started dreaming again then it was nothing like before. There was no more screaming or kicking out, just the rhythm of a heart beat and calm breaths. Fjord found himself missing something that he didn’t even remember having.

 


	6. Chapter 6

Beau had been on watch when the bandits attacked. Technically Fjord should have been with her since they had rules about letting night-blind humans keep watch in the dark, but no one had even considered separating him from Caleb when Caleb clearly needed him and they were still figuring out the strange predicament they were in. So Beau had been adamant she could manage alone, scaling a small tree to give herself a bit of a vantage point and settling in for a few hours.

An arrow hit the bark of the tree beside her head half an hour later. She caught the next one and flung it back into the dark in what she assumed was the direction of the archer, a cry of pain confirming her luck. Swinging down from the tree she yelled out to her friends and whirled back to assume a defensive stance as five shoddily armoured men, who had no idea who they were disturbing, came out of the forest.

As soon as he heard the shout, Fjord was awake. For a split second he almost didn’t want to disturb Caleb, who was blinking sleep from his eyes and looked incredibly comfortable against his chest, but once the wizard had internalised that something bad was happening he was on his feet and facing the danger.

The fight was fast and unbalanced. It became clear in a few seconds that the bandits didn’t stand a chance. Nott took out one with a crossbow bolt, and Beau made quick work of the one she’d already pierced with his own arrow. By the time Jester had clobbered one with a giant spiritual lollypop and Molly had finished him off with a sword to the gut, the two that were left were facing Caleb and Fjord and Fjord had summoned his falchion in his hand, ready to lunge forward. Only he didn’t have to, because Caleb reached into his spell components pouch and dipped his fingers into powdered sulphur. With some quick mumbled words, he formed a ball of fire between his hands and flung it forward so that it impacted with the chest of one man. As soon as it made contact, it exploded into a burst of white-hot fire that encompassed both bandits with a flame so bright that Fjord had to look away. It dimmed to an orange after a moment and then faded until all that was left were two charred corpses and the quiet crackling of the grass that was still on fire around them.

Fjord’s eyes were wide as he turned to Caleb.

“You didn’t tell me you could do that,” he said, still in shock.

Lighting campfires and making tiny nightlights was something, but Fjord had had no idea how powerful Caleb truly was. He was pretty sure that display wasn’t even the most of it, considering Caleb looked so nonchalant and like he could take on at least ten more opponents.

“It is nothing,” Caleb shrugged, wiping his fingers on his coat to get rid of the rest of the sulphur.

He turned away from Fjord. It was difficult to be constantly reminded how little the man knew him now. The old Fjord knew he didn’t like being complimented on burning people alive, knew that one fireball was far from the most impressive thing he could do. Knew where he’d learned it all.  
“Like hell it’s nothing. That’s incredible,” Fjord breathed, unable to look away from Caleb. What other secrets didn’t he know about him?

Jester had been watching the conversation with interest, hoping that Caleb would start to open up a little bit more to Fjord. He needed someone to talk to and that person had always been Fjord before, but now he had no one and that couldn’t be healthy. She understood that things were difficult for them both but it wasn’t like Fjord hadn’t known all of Caleb’s secrets before – if they could trust each other then, surely they could find a way to return to that.

When it became clear Caleb wasn’t going to continue the conversation, she knew she had to step in. So she skipped over and sidled up next to her oldest friend.

“Hey, Fjord?” she said teasingly, with a wide grin she couldn’t supress.

Caleb turned quickly as soon as he heard her voice. Whatever she was going to say, he didn’t trust it.   
“Jester, don’t,” he warned, but no one listened.  
“Yeah?” Fjord asked, a little wary. His eyes went to Caleb, who clearly didn’t want Jester to talk, but he was desperate to know anything he could about this strange man who he clearly loved a lot. It was like a puzzle he was desperate to figure out and maybe Jester had a couple of clues.

Delighted at the permission she’d been given from at least one of them, Jester leapt into what she thought Caleb should be sharing.  
“You know your invisibility spell? And the flying one?” she prompted.  
“Of course?” Fjord shrugged.

Caleb was looking in the other direction, clearly wishing he was somewhere else, but he hadn’t walked away yet so Fjord was taking that as a good sign.  
“Caleb taught them to you,” Jester said, stage whispering.

All Fjord could do was blink.  
“He what?” he asked dumbly, unable to look away from Caleb, who had hunched up his shoulders and was trying to pretend he didn’t exist.

If he thought back to when he first learned the spells, then he could tell someone had been messing with his memories. He could just remember suddenly knowing how to cast them and obviously that wasn’t right. Caleb spending a day patiently going over and over a spell with him, carefully teaching him what components to use and what to say, would fit perfectly into the empty gaps but he _just couldn’t remember it_. He ran his hand awkwardly through his hair and tried not to look as upset as he felt.

Jester just winked and started humming to herself as she headed back to bed. It was still the middle of the night and they all still needed sleep. Fjord was pretty sure that Caleb wasn’t up for cuddling any more, and sure enough the wizard was walking away and crawling under his blankets, as guarded as he’d been the day before. Sleeping alone it was then, although Fjord was reluctant to return to his own bedroll. He couldn’t wait to get to Zadash so they could fix this.

*

As soon as the first smudge of light hit his eyes, Fjord forced himself out of bed. He had committed himself to making sure Caleb ate some more food and by the gods he was going to stick to it. If he couldn’t do anything genuinely useful to help, then he would do what he could.

Cooking didn’t come naturally to Fjord, but he knew a little about feeding a lot of people with minimal resources from his time on ships. It was easy enough to put together a breakfast of oatmeal that might not taste perfect, but it would give them all some energy and Caleb needed the calories. He plated up a double helping for his newest friend and headed over to where Caleb was sat up in bed, already reading.

“Here,” he said, handing over the bowl.

Resting his book on his thighs, Caleb looked up still bleary-eyed. When he took the proffered food and registered how much there was, he gave Fjord a look of fond amusement. This felt a lot like before.

“Thank you,” he smiled. “Did you make this?”

“Yeah,” Fjord shrugged, trying to pretend like he hadn’t been up all morning just for Caleb.

Turning around to rifle through his pack, Caleb pulled out a little bag of sugar and sprinkled it over the oatmeal before taking a bite. At Fjord’s affronted look, he just laughed.

“I’ve had your cooking before, _Liebling_.” The nickname was out of his mouth before he could stop himself, and his cheeks immediately turned a dark red. He wanted nothing more than to curl back into bed. “I mean- I- _Fjord_. I’m sorry.”

He’d been trying so hard not to be affectionate, but Fjord made it too easy to slip back into the way they’d been before. Even in their currently predicament he was caring and sweet and brought Caleb lots of food because he was worried about how skinny he was. If Fjord was allowed to act like he had before anything had happened, he couldn’t blame Caleb for doing the same.

Fjord was still stunned from the epithet. Even if it wasn’t in a language he understood, the meaning was obvious. He wanted to hear it again but from the way Caleb was staring down into his bowl, it had been a slip of the tongue and nothing else. The radiated uncomfortableness was back and Fjord knew when his presence was neither wanted nor required. He nodded to Caleb awkwardly and returned to the fire to share the rest of the food out between his friends. It was easier to put distance between the two of them than try and deal with it.

*

Fjord could tell, once they’d packed up the wagon and were on the road again, that they were in for a repeat of how things had been before. Caleb was going to hide in his familiar’s head, under the vague pretence of scouting ahead, and they wouldn’t talk about anything that was happening. That wasn’t how Fjord wanted things to go. After the night they’d had, he wanted to talk.

Just as Caleb settled down to project his consciousness to Frumpkin’s eyes, Fjord swallowed his reservations and reached out to put a hand on his knee. Caleb jerked back but he didn’t start a conversation. He just looked up, a little cautiously, and waited.

There was no privacy on the back of a wagon and Fjord was very aware that his friends were listening in to this discussion, despite their attempts to look disengaged and casual. Still, he had to have this conversation while he still had the nerve. While that nickname Caleb had called him still echoed around his mind.  

“Can I buy you a drink at the next town?” he asked quickly, the words blending together so it took Caleb a couple of seconds to work out what he was trying to say.

If there was ever any doubt that the rest of the group was listening in, Jester’s excited gasp confirmed it. Caleb blinked, forcing back a wave of déjà vu. He hadn’t seen nervous, endearing Fjord in what felt like a very long time.  
“Are you asking me out?” Caleb said, hesitantly. He needed to be sure.  
“Maybe,” Fjord shrugged, trying not to look as uncomfortable as he felt. He was hoping they could fall into an easy existence where they could start to rebuild the relationship he couldn’t remember, just in case things in Zadash didn’t go as planned.  
“Why?” Caleb pushed. Fjord was acting like this was simple, but it was far from.

For a moment Fjord wasn’t sure how to answer. He wanted to know what it was like to kiss Caleb, to sleep beside him when it wasn’t just to calm him after a nightmare, or to be called sweet nicknames on a regular basis, and he knew he had to start somewhere.  
“Because I want to find out why I used to love you,” he tried, because in truth that’s what he wanted to return to. Love.

Caleb knew he didn’t mean the words to be cruel, but that didn’t mean they didn’t hurt. He flinched and shuffled his knee until Fjord’s hand fell away. The past tense stung like salt in a fresh wound. Nothing was past tense for him; he was still very much in love and knew exactly why, and he hated the fact that it was different for Fjord. But he couldn’t find the words to explain that.

“I would rather not. It would be… difficult. To not have you remember every date we have gone on before,” he said honestly. It was nice that Fjord was trying, but it couldn’t work like that. Not when their relationship was so unbalanced.

Fjord sighed, but he didn’t try to push the matter. If Caleb didn’t want to make new memories with them while they were still dealing with the effects of this spell, he could respect that. But he felt far too distant from the wizard.

“Will you tell me about them? Your favourites,” he asked. If they’d once been his memories too, he wanted to know.

Caleb almost said no. His dates with Fjord were always as quiet as they could make them – short hikes away from the group to stargaze in peace, library visits where he could get lost in dusty old books and Fjord was always content to watch him whisper to himself, the back corner of taverns where the air was warm and smelled of the flagon of spiced ale in front of Fjord – it all felt private and he hated to let people intrude even on just the memories, but this was Fjord.

“I can do that,” he nodded slowly.

And he did. He kept his voice as quiet as possible so the rest of the group could catch snippets at best above the noise of the cart’s wheels, but he relayed the dates he had loved most to an enraptured Fjord. He didn’t always share _why_ the dates were his favourites, because sometimes that was caught up in the fade-to-black moments at the end of the date that he couldn’t bring himself to detail, but he told the stories nonetheless. It might have made Fjord feel better, but it just dug the hole in Caleb’s heart deeper and deeper.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I ignored the existence of the darkvision goggles. Just because.


	7. Chapter 7

The journey went faster when Caleb was actually talking to Fjord. It felt more like before, more like he could rest his head on Fjord’s shoulder if he wanted or press a kiss to Fjord’s cheek if he needed some contact. He didn’t, but the possibility was tangibly close. By the time they made it to the next town Caleb was feeling more relaxed then he had since they’d fought the mage. Fjord had always had that effect on him.

Settling down in a tavern in a new town so they could rest for an evening was definitely the best idea, but Caleb couldn’t help but feel bitter about it. He didn’t want to rest. He wanted to get to Zadash as soon as possible so they could find someone who could fix what had happened to Fjord. Because he missed touching him and kissing him and sleeping beside him; he missed sex and having someone who knew everything about him. It was surprising even to Caleb himself how much he missed intimacy when he’d stayed away from it in any form for so long.

Once he’d left his meagre possessions in the room he was yet again sharing with Nott and Jester instead of his kind-of-boyfriend, Caleb headed back down to the taproom in search of something to drink. As soon as he’d ordered, a man appeared beside him and there was a hand on his back. For a second he tensed, a spell automatically gathering at his fingertips, only relaxing when he realised it was Fjord’s hand. A Fjord who didn’t know not to touch him without warning.

“I’ll pay for whatever he’s having,” Fjord said, addressing the words themselves to the man behind the bar but undeniably putting on an even more suave tone than usual for Caleb’s benefit. “And a whiskey for myself.”

“Fjord-” Caleb tried to protest as he fought back a blush. He’d said no to being bought a drink for a reason.

But Fjord just smiled.

“Not a date,” he promised with a wink, gesturing behind him to where Jester and Beau were arm wrestling at a large table against the wall. This was just friends all drinking together.

Caleb wasn’t entirely buying it but he couldn’t find it in his heart to argue, so he picked up the glass that was set in front of him by the bartender and took a sip.

“Thank you,” he said, genuine and with the briefest hint of a smile.

Shrugging the gratitude off, Fjord handed over a small stack of coins across the bar and picked up his own drink before leading Caleb over to join the girls. Nott had snuck up at some point and was trying to convince Beau that she was also a worthy arm wrestling opponent, and Molly made his way across the room just as Caleb and Fjord were sitting down. They barely fit around one table, as always, and Caleb ended up squashed between Jester and Nott. It only took the tiefling a handful of minutes before she was braiding his hair into loose plaits, and he couldn’t be bothered to engage her in the argument he knew would come of asking her to stop.

“You should really wash your hair,” Jester said after a few braids, as loud and tactless as ever.

Caleb tensed up and scowled, pulling away so his hair fell from Jester’s hands. He knew it had been too long and it had been troubling him too, but there was nothing he could do. Not now.  
“You know I can’t,” he mumbled, his voice monotone.

An uncomfortable silence fell over the group and Fjord was painfully aware that he was missing some vital piece of information. He watched as Nott took Caleb’s hand and patted it gently in an attempt to make him feel better. From the way everyone was sneaking glances at him, he was pretty sure that the detail he was missing was to do with him, so he awkwardly cleared his throat.  
“Can I ask why?” he tried cautiously.

Caleb was looking intently at the wood grain of the table, rubbing at it with the pad of his thumb as if it held the answer to all his problems and he just had to get the genie out. Fjord could tell that he wasn’t going to be providing an answer anytime soon so, feeling guilty even as he did, he turned his inquisitive look on Jester in the hope she’d be more forthcoming. And he wasn’t disappointed.   
“You usually help him,” she explained, pouting now she clearly wasn’t welcome to mess with Caleb’s hair.

Caleb slumped down so far into his coat that he seemed to shrink at least a foot. He hated it when people told his secrets, hated not having control over what people knew. Fjord was probably looking at him with pity, because who got to age 33 and couldn’t bear to get their head wet without someone they trusted beyond measure beside them? Caleb couldn’t bear to make eye contact and see that expression.  
“I what?” Fjord asked, stunned. Washing Caleb’s hair sounded incredibly intimate and he couldn’t imagine being allowed that close to the wizard.  
“Jester!” Caleb hissed, trying not to betray how vulnerable he felt with all the attention on him. She just shrugged in response.  
“He doesn’t like it. No one can get him to wash it but you,” she said, turning back to Fjord. It wasn’t like he hadn’t known before this whole thing anyway, and he’d know again once they got his memory back.

Caleb pushed away from the table and got up without a word, heading upstairs to the room and ignoring Nott’s call from behind him. He reflexively got out one of the books they’d taken from the mage’s tower and cast his translation spell to start reading, just to have something to do. As he read, he tied his hair up with a thin strip of leather so it wasn’t so obvious how much it needed washing. Because he couldn’t ask Fjord.

By the time Jester and Nott came up from the taproom, Caleb was asleep. Or pretending to be asleep. He just didn’t want to have to face them while he felt so disconcerted; fighting with Jester wasn’t going to solve anything and he knew she never actually meant to cause harm.

Real sleep did not come so easily as the pretence. Caleb could feel the regular nightmares creeping up his throat and threatening to choke him. Forcing the memories away, he tried to get some rest by himself. Because he didn’t need Fjord. He didn’t.

Despite his best attempts, the nightmares never just went away because he willed it so. As soon as his eyes closed the feel of water filling his lungs started and it got worse the more he tried to keep them at bay. Half an hour of fitful attempts at rest went by before he gave up. If he let himself fall asleep like this then he’d only wake up screaming, and the last thing he wanted to do was scare Nott with that. So he begrudgingly climbed to his feet and snuck out of the room as quietly as he could manage, crossing the hallway and knocking on the opposite door.

They’d rearranged room divisions after the fight with the mage. He’d quietly admitted to Molly that he really couldn’t stay with Fjord until this was all sorted – it was too confusing, and the tiefling had agreed to help him swap around sleeping arrangements. So Molly was roommates with Fjord once again, like he’d been before Caleb had started spending his nights in Fjord’s bed. It wasn’t that surprising, then, when Molly opened the door. Although as soon as he realised who it was who had come knocking, he stepped away without a word, knowing that he wasn’t who Caleb had come to see.

From the light seeping in from the lit torch in the hallway, Caleb could see Fjord blinking blearily across the room and pushing himself up on his forearms to see who was in the doorway.

“Can I?” Caleb asked awkwardly. He was hoping that would be enough for Fjord to know what he was talking about, because he didn’t have a way to word the request that didn’t make him cringe to even think it.

Fjord was still barely awake but he summoned together enough consciousness to pull back his covers and mumble something that sounded encouraging. That was all the invitation Caleb needed and he took the step forward into the room before shutting the door behind him and throwing the room back into darkness. Without darkvision he was blind and he carefully felt his way across to where he knew Fjord’s bed was.

Fjord couldn’t help but look at the sight fondly – Caleb tentatively making each step, holding his hands out in front of him. When his fingers found Fjord’s chest instead of the bed sheets, Fjord didn’t stop him. Quickly pulling away with a rough apology in Zemnian, Caleb laid down on the very edge of the bed, trying to put as much distance between them as possible. Only Fjord just snorted and pulled him closer until they were wrapped up together like they’d been the night before. If Caleb needed him to keep nightmares away then that wasn’t going to work unless Caleb could actually feel him near.

Fjord could see Molly watching them through the dark with amusement on his lips and he just glared in return, knowing the tiefling had just as good darkvision. But Molly wasn’t laughing to mock them, he was just happy to see them so like they’d been before everything had gone to hell for them. It was reassuring.

Mumbling a goodnight, Fjord settled back down to return to sleep. It was far more comfortable with Caleb in his arms and they both slept soundly, with no bandits and no nightmares. He never wanted to get up.

By the time Caleb woke up the next morning, Molly was gone from the bed across the room. With no one to watch him or judge him, he relaxed into Fjord’s embrace a little more. While they were like this, it didn’t feel like anything was wrong and that was such a relief, even if it was an ersatz one.

“Hey, darlin’,” Fjord mumbled, feeling Caleb shift in his arms.

The words had Caleb freezing up for a moment before struggling out of Fjord’s arms so he could turn and stare at him with so much hope in his eyes. That nickname was from before.   
“Fjord?” he breathed, praying to any god who might be listening that their problems had fixed themselves overnight.

Confused by the sudden movement, Fjord blinked up at Caleb with concern in his eyes. And then he registered the hopeful look and flinched.  
“Oh, did I used to-” he guessed, but before he could finish Caleb was pulling away and wrapping his arms around his knees.

“Forget it,” he mumbled, looking down at his feet. He should have guessed it would never be that easy.  
“I’m sorry, I didn’t know,” Fjord sighed.

“It’s okay, I just…”

Caleb looked up and found more love in Fjord’s eyes than he had seen for what felt like a very long time and he couldn’t make it to the end of the sentence. Instead he crawled back up from the foot of the bed and reached out a shaky hand to caress Fjord’s cheek, before leaning in and following the same path with the briefest, most barely there brush of his lips that was conceivably possible.

Now, Fjord had been very careful about keeping his distance from Caleb. He was not at all opposed to dates and kisses and sharing beds – he didn’t hate the idea of starting up a relationship again, but Caleb was far more hesitant. And that was okay, because they were both determined to fix what had happened and hopefully return to the real relationship they’d had before and Fjord was happy to wait. Except here Caleb was, kissing him on the cheek and getting closer than he had before. It was like he wanted contact but was afraid to ask for it, and this was as far as he’d let himself go. So Fjord reached out and let his hands find Caleb’s waist, tugging him closer. He leaned forward and came so close to a kiss, a _real_ kiss, that he could feel Caleb’s breath on his lips. But then Caleb pulled away.

“ _Nein_ ,” he said, quick and quiet.

“My apologies,” Fjord coughed, taking his hands from Caleb’s waist and shuffling back so they weren’t touching anymore. He felt extremely teased, but he knew it wasn’t Caleb’s fault. Not really.

“I… This is difficult,” Caleb tried to explain.

He knew it wasn’t fair to play with Fjord’s emotions – someone had already done that to an invasive and impossible degree, but it was still strange not to touch. They’d spent months kissing each other good morning and good night and now it was like quitting an addition. It had become so natural and now he had to learn to stop, at least for a while. Clearly he still had troubling resisting temptation if it was too strong.  
“I know. I’m so sorry, Caleb,” Fjord offered, because what more could he do.

There were tears in Caleb’s eyes when he looked up.

“I love you. So much. I just cannot...” he cut himself off as soon as his voice started to waver, knowing he’d break down if he kept talking.

“We’ll fix this,” Fjord promised decisively, resisting the urge to take Caleb’s hands. “And then you can kiss me all you want.”  
Caleb recognised his own words from the first night they’d had to deal with this, and he couldn’t help but smile.

“That will probably be a lot,” he admitted a little shyly.

“I look forward to it,” Fjord laughed.

As much as he wanted a lie-in, any domestic bubble that existed had been well and truly burst and he knew they had to get up. The sooner they did, the quicker they could be on the road. Zadash was waiting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter is going to have more plot, I promise


	8. Chapter 8

Having learned the hard way that getting too close to Fjord was too difficult, Caleb settled on treating him like a friend he didn’t know quite well enough to tell anything incriminating to, just in case. He knew he trusted Fjord, but he also knew that he needed boundaries to stay sane, and that seemed like as good a wall as any to put up.

The nightmares started leaving Caleb alone, which made it far easier to stick to his plan. It was difficult to keep your distance from someone if you had to burrow into their arms at night to get any amount of rest. He kept his bedroll on the opposite side of the fire as they continued to travel towards Zadash. Frumpkin would curl up on his head, the way cats were wont to do, and he’d sometimes have a bundle of Nott at his feet or against his back. And yet he still felt lonely.

They were two days travel from the city, stopping over at another tavern, when they heard the rumour. It was barely even that to anyone without vested interest, just a taproom tale of local gossip to keep people entertained so they’d stay and drink longer. Caleb was half-heartedly listening to the barkeeper talk as he brushed out Nott’s hair and tied it off into two plaits that swung around her shoulders. When he heard the mentions of a mage turning up on the outside of town, trying to sell potions to villagers with promises of happiness and wealth attached, his fingers stilled. The modus operandi sounded exactly like the one they’d gone after before. The one who’d taken away Fjord’s memories.

Shuffling closer to the railings so he could see down to where the story was being told on the bottom floor of the tavern, Caleb flipped open a notebook and scribbled down as many details as he could. One thing was clear - they were going after that mage.

The rest of the Mighty Nein agreed without question, as Caleb had been sure they would. He couldn’t fail to see the hope in Fjord’s eyes as they talked about how best to find the mage’s new hideout and when to attack. If anyone knew how to reverse the spell, it was the man who had cast it. Maybe they wouldn’t have to go to Zadash after all. Trying not to get his hopes up, Caleb forced himself not to think too far ahead. This might not even be the same guy. Nothing was certain.

-

Walking through the forest on their way to the tent Caleb had spotted through Frumpkin’s eyes on a flyover, the wizard felt fire jumping between his fingertips. He didn’t even have to look down to see hear the gentle cracking of flames. Everyone was keeping their distance from him, shooting him concerned glances, but he didn’t bother to acknowledge it. Even if he could bring himself to try to calm down, he knew it would be fruitless. He was too angry.

As they got closer to the mage’s camp, they spread out to enact their plan. Just before he moved into his position for their attack, Fjord took Caleb’s hand. Looking down in shock, Caleb expected to see Fjord’s hand blistered from the fire, but there was a thin layer of frost, a magic he recognised as similar to the _Armor of Agathys_ spell Fjord would cast on himself in battle. The frost extinguished Caleb’s passive flames with a dull hiss, and all he could feel was Fjord’s rope-roughed hand around his.

“See you on the other side, yeah?” Fjord smiled, still clearly hoping this would be the end of the problems with his memories.

Caleb was still blinking at him in surprise. When he was so angry his body started catching fire without his permission, everyone stayed away. Even Nott, _even Jester_ , recognised that he was dangerous like that, and yet here Fjord was, touching him seemingly without fear even after having seen Caleb ignite two men right in front of him and turn them to ash.

“I… Yes,” Caleb managed. “Stay safe.”

Usually Fjord would kiss him before a fight like this, quick and reassuring, but that was off the table at the moment so Caleb just squeezed back on his hand before letting go quickly. The creative use of the frost armour might have worked originally, but he wasn’t sure how long it would last and he really didn’t want to burn him. As soon as Fjord’s fingers left his, the flames were back. He was ready to fight.

Ambushes weren’t The Mighty Nein’s specialty, but they knew it was their best bet to one-upping this foe. He’d already escaped them once and they needed to overpower him quickly and efficiently. They surrounded the tent and, more synchronised than they’d ever been, unleashed hell.

Fjord has learned that Caleb was powerful. He'd seen him take down enemies in battle with arcane prowess that almost bowled him over, and he'd watched as Caleb cast minor spells like they were nothing - just a flick of his wrist and a room was lit or he could read any language. But this was different. This was personal, and Caleb's magic was drawing on a deep well of anger and frustration and despair. And that was all turning into a ferocity that Fjord couldn't look away from. 

Only Fjord had his own score to settle, too. It was because of this mage that he couldn't remember a single second of an entire relationship with an incredible man who he was already extremely fond of. He didn't usually relish in killing people, but there was an exception to every rule and by the gods had he found his. As soon as the tent had been torn down and the mage, confused and a little scared, was facing them all, Fjord felt the same fierceness he could see in Caleb’s eyes.

The rest of the party were just as motivated to take the mage down on behalf of their friends, and it was only moments before he was barely standing, clutching at his ribs and trying to summon enough strength to cast a healing spell Jester recognised from the words he was mumbling.

Caleb knew he could end this. He flipped the page in his spellbook to a spell he was loathe to use on other humans, but something inside him wanted to watch this man burn.

Part of him was tempted to hurl abuse, getting in one last damnation before he sent this man deep into hell, but he was shaking too much to remember how to string his own words together. Instead he held eye contact with the mage, wanting him to know exactly who had taken him down. 

The plan was to keep him alive, so he could fix whatever he had done to Fjord, but when he looked up and met Caleb's eyes, there was a flicker of recognition. He glanced over to Fjord and that flicker turned into a sadistic grin.

'Missing your boyfriend?' he laughed, openly mocking Caleb even as he spat out blood.

That was the last straw. Caleb practically growled as he raised his hand and focused three bolts of fire right into the mage's chest, each striking true and sending his robes up in flames. He watched with grim satisfaction as the fire spread to his hair, relishing in the screams of a man who didn’t have enough energy to put himself out.

Caleb knew some spells ended with the death of the caster and he was really hoping this was one of them. As soon as the mage hit the floor he turned to Fjord, hoping everything would have righted itself. 

“Fjord?” he tried, hoping to get some indication that he had his memories back. Instead he got a sad shake of the head.

Rage flooded Caleb’s body and he turned back to the charred body of the mage on the ground. He could still feel magic thrumming in his fingertips and he succumbed to the desire to use it. Screaming abuse in Zemnian, he lunged towards the body and fired firebolt after firebolt. He didn’t stop until the mage was nothing but ash and he could barely stay standing, swaying on his feet as his shouts turned to sobs.

Suddenly arms were around him as his knees buckled and he collapsed to the floor. He didn't even know it was Fjord until he opened his eyes and saw the green skin of his arm, because this was a Fjord who didn't know that the best way to calm him down was to run fingers through his hair. Still, it was impossible not to take comfort from the embrace and he relaxed a little, the shaking in his body slowly subsiding even as tears kept falling.

No one knew what to say, an uncomfortable silence settling over the forest. Nott was scavenging the remains of the tent and Beau was gripping Yasha’s hand with force that would have anyone else wincing. Eventually it was Molly who spoke first.

“As cathartic as I'm sure that was, we could have done with keeping him alive,” he pointed out, getting a glare from Fjord for his troubles. Pointing out the obvious wasn’t helping anything.

“I got it!” Jester shouted, skipping over to see what was left of the body. All she needed was the mage to still have a mouth, and she could make him talk.

Only Caleb had done too good a job of removing the man from the plane. There was little left of him besides a still gleaming and therefore clearly enchanted necklace that had been around his neck, which Jester quickly pocketed to hand over for identifying when Caleb was feeling better. Besides that, all that remained was dust and the smell of burning flesh. She turned back to the group and shook her head, the chains and beads on her horns making her sound far happier than she felt.

“I’m sorry,” Caleb mumbled, his voiced scratched from shouting. “We should have kept him alive. I should not have… lost my temper.”

He bowed his head in shame, glad to have Fjord still beside him so he felt at least slightly hidden from what he was sure was disapproving looks from the rest of the party.

“Hey, if you hadn’t fried him, it would have been me killing him instead,” Fjord said, trying to be as reassuring as he could. “You just got there a second earlier.”

No one mentioned the fact that, if it had been Fjord who had killed the mage, Jester would still be able to cast _speak with dead_ on his body. But even if she had, there was no guarantee that he would have divulged the information they needed.  
“We could have made him fix this,” Caleb sighed. Despite trying not to put too much stock in having his boyfriend back by the end of the day, he had been imagining it. The idea of sleeping in Fjord’s bed again had been teasing him since they’d heard the rumours but evidently he was going to have to shelve that for a little while longer.  
“He got away once, didn’t he? At least he ain’t gonna be hurting anyone else like he’s hurt us,” Fjord pointed out. Caleb liked the word ‘us’. He hadn’t felt much like an ‘us’ lately. “And we’re close to Zadash. It won’t be long now.”

Fjord had a point, Caleb had to admit. The mage being dead definitely had its benefits when it came to other people not winding up in the same situation, but Caleb wanted to be selfish. He wanted to be allowed to just care about himself and about Fjord, and to come up with a way to get back to what they were before. Zadash was now their best chance and they couldn’t get there fast enough.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I thought I'd abandoned this fic but then I stumbled upon it and since I already have most of the last few chapters written, I figured I'd finished it. It's obviously not canonically accurate anymore, what with all the more we know now, but maybe there's still someone out there who wants to read it anyway?

They probably exhausted their horses more than should have done in pushing them to get to Zadash, but both Fjord and Caleb were getting desperate to sort things out. Caleb was convinced there had to be answers in the city. If they couldn’t find a person who could help then he would spent every moment of every day digging through the archives until he found what he needed.

The Tri-Spires were the most beautiful sight Caleb had ever seen when they first came into sight over the crest of a hill. It was everything he’d wanted to see for the weeks they’d been travelling, and he finally felt close to fixing everything that had gone wrong. Jester was nattering on to Fjord about all the Zadash-based Caleb memories he’d forgotten and, for once, Caleb didn’t try to stop her. It was nice to hear them. Soon, no one would need to tell Fjord anything about their past together – he’d remember and things would be back to normal.

“You’re smiling,” Nott said, poking at Caleb’s cheek as she looked up from organising her button collection on the floor of the cart.

“Yeah,” Caleb grinned even wider. “I guess I am.”

He couldn’t help but ruffle her hair, even if it always had her complaining. He was just so excited at the possibility of everything going back to normal. Or as normal as they got.

-

Zadash was exactly like Caleb remembered it, but suddenly it seemed better. Fjord bumped gently against his shoulder as they walked into the Leaky Tap to claim their usual set of rooms, his grin matching Caleb’s. He didn’t bother with words, but Caleb got the message anyway. They were so close to a solution for this whole mess.

It was a big city when you were looking for one piece of information in it. As soon as Caleb dropped his bags off at the tavern, he was gone. His first stop was Pumat Sol but, as helpful as the man could be, he had never heard of the kind of spell that had been cast on Fjord. The second chance involved begging Beau to get him access to the Cobalt Soul archives, in the hope that there was information there that wasn’t available to the ordinary citizen of the Empire. Ordinarily she’d have balked at the idea of asking them for a favour like that, but she could see the suffering her friends were going through and she wasn’t totally heartless. With minimal protesting, she headed out with Caleb in tow, only to return an hour later with both of them grumbling about paperwork and having to wait three days before anything was processed and they were allowed access. It wasn’t ideal, but it was the best they could manage.

Caleb spent the night in the bar of the Leaky Tap, staring into a mug of ale like it might hold the answers to all his problems. He’d finally given up on reading the books they’d taken from the mage, certain they didn’t contain the information he needed, but he couldn’t bring himself to read anything else. He knew he wasn’t good company, so he could hardly blame the rest of the Mighty Nein when they scattered to spend their evenings elsewhere in the room.

When he finally looked up, Caleb really wished he hadn’t. Fjord was leaning against the bar, talking to a very familiar purple tiefling, laughing and smiling in a way Caleb hadn’t seen directed towards him in weeks. He returned to his gaze to the table quickly and downed what was left of the alcohol in his mug. The distant, wistful look in his eyes turned to a heartbroken grimace. Because he hadn’t stopped loving Fjord and it hurt to see the evidence that Fjord didn’t care for him anymore. If he wanted to flirt with Molly, technically he was free to do so. But there was no rule that Caleb had to like it.

“He doesn’t love him,” Beau said as she slumped into the chair beside him and followed the wizard’s gaze.

Caleb frowned and flinched away, hating that he was so obvious in his feelings.   
“There is nothing stopping him,” he sighed, turning so he was facing away from Fjord. It was too tempting to torture himself by looking.  
“Caleb, do you really think he’d-” Beau tried, but Caleb was having none of it.

“Fall in love with a man he has known for months on the road? It happened once, did it not?” he interrupted her, his voice bitter and hurt.

He was about to get up and leave so he didn’t have to deal with well-meant but unbearable attempts to comfort him, but Jester sat herself down in the chair on the other side and suddenly he felt very caged in. Save for climbing under the table, he couldn’t escape, and Jester seemed more than happy to join Beau’s side of the argument.

“He loves you,” she said, very matter-of-fact. Piecing together the topic of conversation wasn’t difficult from the little she’d overheard on her way over and the way Caleb looked like he wanted to disappear.

“He doesn’t even know who I _am_ ,” Caleb said through gritted teeth. He hated having to admit to it.

Tutting, Jester put her arm around him. The only reason he didn’t shrug it off or fight to get away was because the last thing he wanted was to cause a scene. Instead he just hunched his shoulders more and tried to make himself as small as possible.

“You won’t let him try and make things work with you. He’s talked to me,” she pointed out.

Caleb knew it was stupid. They were so close to finding a remedy and yet he still couldn’t bring himself to jump ahead and go back to what they were already. There was a part of him that knew Fjord would have him, would kiss him and sleep beside him, if he wanted it. But Caleb still felt uneasy about being that close to someone who couldn’t remember all the times they’d been close before.   
“I have an entire intimate history with him, knowledge of secrets and dates and shared moments, and he cannot remember a single thing. How am I supposed to be okay with that?” he complained, feeling like he was justified to a little whining. It wasn’t like they could fully understand how he felt.  
“Just let him try,” Beau shrugged.

'Yeah,” Jester added. “Why don't you just give him a chance? You already know it works out.”

Caleb couldn’t explain it, and he’d given up trying. All he had to offer them was the conclusion he’d come to.

“I'm waiting. For his memories to come back,” he mumbled.

There was a moment of silence where he could tell they were thinking something that they didn’t want to tell him but eventually Jester couldn’t stand the stagnancy of the conversation.

“Caleb, what if they don't?” she said, as carefully as she possibly could.

“ _Sei ruhig_ ,” he growled. He didn’t want to talk about that potential reality because then he had to think about it, and that was a special kind of hell. He was putting all his faith into a future where everything would be right again.

“Maybe the best thing to do is to make new memories. Just in case,” Beau suggested gently. It was a tone she rarely used, and Caleb knew it meant he looked distraught.

“They won't be new to me. If I kiss him now, he'll see it as our first kiss and I'll know it just one of hundreds. I can't relive firsts. I need him to remember the _real_ first time we kissed,” he argued.

There was power in memories – Caleb knew that all too well. They were real and tangible and sacred and no magic should ever be able to mess with them. He could read his memories of his time with Fjord in how he automatically reached out for his lover when he woke up in the morning, how he instinctively went to kiss him goodnight if he left the fireside earlier than most of the others, how his heart skipped a beat whenever Fjord brushed past him or sat too close in the cart. The memories had changed him, had attuned his body to Fjord’s, and he’d been so used to the way that Fjord’s body had been similarly in sync with his own. Now it was all gone and he needed it back. He needed Fjord to remember.

“And if he never does?” Beau prompted, no doubt trying to be helpful.

“He will.”

“Caleb-”

“He. Will.”

Caleb couldn’t have the conversation anymore. He pushed his chair back from the table with enough force that it drew the attention of several patrons of the tavern, including the worried gaze of Fjord. Ignoring it as much as he could, he retired upstairs. He was grateful when Nott followed him, interested in requesting the loan of her bottomless flask for the night. Liquor seemed like a good enough way as any to make things hurt less.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more chapter after this, I think!

There was a largely unspoken rule amongst the Mighty Nine never to wake Beau up if you weren’t Yasha. Because Yasha could immediately placate her angry girlfriend with kisses, and no one else wanted to risk the wrath of a pissed off monk with a mean right hook (and left hook. And two roundhouse kicks.) so everyone knew better. Except, on the day that he would finally had access to the Cobalt Soul archives, Caleb really didn’t care.

Knocking insistently on the door he knew belonged to Beau, he was fully dressed and rocking back and forward on his heels, his feet desperate to get moving. After a solid three five minutes, a bleary-eyed barbarian pulled the door open with a surprising amount of strength for someone still half-asleep.

“What?” she growled.

“The archives. Is Beau up? I need to get reading,” Caleb explained, his thoughts out of order and not fully formed.

Once she realised what had possessed Caleb to risk his life to wake them up, Yasha nodded in understanding and shut the door in his face. Ten seconds later, Beau pushed the door open a crack and stuck her head through.

“Meet you downstairs. Give me ten minutes,” she directed, shutting him out again.

It was all Caleb could do to follow instructions, so he waited in the bar, pacing the width of the room endlessly until Beau finally appeared and clapped him on the back.

“Let’s go find out what the fuck happened to your man.”

-

A labyrinth of rooms full of scrolls and books and tablets would usually be something Caleb would want to walk around and fully take in, marvelling at shelf after shelf before casting _Detect Magic_ and following whichever aura shone brightest. But he didn’t have the time. So instead he asked Beau to inquire as to where they’d find the books on memory spells and he headed straight there. This was a mission he was determined not to fail.

Beau tried to help, but there was only so many pages of wizard stuff she didn’t understand that she could tolerate before she started to get antsy. She quickly worked out that she wasn’t the best person to be there with Caleb, and that there was only one person that could be quite as invested in the search as he was so she set out to bring her friend the help he needed.

-

“Let me help,” Fjord requested, sitting opposite Caleb and waiting expectantly.

For the first time since he’d sat down, Caleb pulled his attention away from the book in front of him to find his estranged lover looking back at him, Beau leaning in the doorway and looking proud of herself. Caleb didn’t mind the idea of help. Usually he’d have protected the knowledge as his own, but with their current situation he just wanted an understanding of how to right things, no matter how they came upon it. But it wasn’t going to be that easy.

“You cannot read the-” Caleb tried, lifting up the book he was reading so Fjord could see the Infernal title on the spine.

Waving the words away, Fjord interrupted.

“Give me the ones in Common. You can take the crazy demon books,” he shrugged.

He had a point. Caleb sorted through the books he’d surrounded himself with to pull out a couple that Fjord would be able to understand. He knew Fjord didn’t read as fast as he did, so he didn’t hand over many of the heavy tomes, but he still appreciated the assistance.   
“Do you know what to look for?” he asked, already half back to reading. Scanning the books for specific information was a precision operation and he was still a little hesitant to share some of the responsibility. This was important.

Fjord raised his eyebrow.  
“A spell that removes all the memories of someone you love? I’m well acquainted,” he pointed out.

Feeling his cheeks heat up, Caleb nodded mutely and raised the book a little higher so it would cover his blush. Fjord knew how much this mattered, even if he didn’t remember what they fighting to get back.

They read in silence and with fever for hours, skipping lunch and dinner to leaf through page after page. The pile of books next to each of them grew about equally in size over the duration of the day – Caleb might normally read faster, but he was hindered by the spells he had to cast to make the writing morph into something his brain could comprehend. Even if he could understand the words, they still weren’t helpful and it was getting frustrating.

After so long with the two of them getting nowhere, Nott scuttled in and, not wanting to disturb the studious quiet, held her hands out for a book from Caleb. Sensing exactly what she wanted, he picked one of the books in Common and handed it over. Of course she wanted to help too.

It was more surprising when Jester turned up, dragging Molly behind her. Their appearance was as practical as well as supportive, and Caleb gratefully handed over a couple of books in Infernal. Beau and Yasha, both looking out of place but keen to help, weren’t far behind. Not new to Cobalt Soul research, Beau pulled a book off the table and settled against Yasha’s side as they both sat down on the floor and made themselves comfortable.

The Mighty Nine filled an entire reading room by nightfall, scanning book after book for a cure for Fjord’s lost memories. And yet they found nothing.

Caleb wasn’t about to give up. He went back to the archives day after day, slowly making his way through the shelves of information on memory spells. Most days Fjord was there with him, and usually a few of the others would pop in for an hour or two but eventually they ran out of Common and Infernal books and his friends went from research assistants to moral support rather quickly.

When a week had passed, Jester managed to convince Caleb that he needed a night off. He agreed more to appease her than for his own sanity, but come nightfall he found himself nursing a drink in the bar of the Leaky Tap, feeling horribly like they’d gotten no closer to an answer in an entire week of work.

“Eat.”

Caleb looked up to find Fjord pushing a bowl of stew across the table, sitting down in the chair beside him.  
“Fjord”- he tried to protest, but Fjord was having none of it.

“ _Eat._ I know you spend all your time in that library, and I know you don’t eat while you’re there. You need it.”

There was so much earnest compassion in Fjord’s eyes that Caleb couldn’t refuse. He picked up the spoon and began to eat almost on autopilot, barely registering the taste of the rich broth and seared meat. Whether the half-orc stuck around because he had nowhere better to be or because he wanted to make sure the food actually got eaten, Caleb wasn’t sure, but either way Fjord didn’t leave his side. They watched the centre of the room as several tipsy patrons pushed some tables aside to create an open space where they started to merrily dance in pairs to the music of the small band in the corner.

“Do we… Do we dance?” Fjord asked, a little awkward. He carefully kept to present tense, having noted that past tense comments about their relationship put Caleb on edge.

Caleb couldn’t help but laugh a little. The idea alone was amusing, even if it was another reminder of yet something else Fjord had once known and now did not.  
“We do not,” he confirmed.   
“Why not?”

From everything Fjord had heard of his lost memories and everything he had experienced of Caleb, he imagined wanting to be close to the wizard was an almost constant desire, and dancing seemed like a wonderful way to do that while in public in a socially acceptable way.

“ _I_ don’t dance,” Caleb explained, because he hadn’t for such a long time that he wasn’t sure he even knew how any more.

“Have I ever asked you?”

Caleb had to think about that. There hadn’t really been all too many chances for any of the Mighty Nine to dance before, and when there had been Fjord had always just assumed Caleb’s stance of anti-dancing without having to confirm it.

“…No?” he guessed.

“Huh,” Fjord said, deep in thought for a moment before he climbed to his feet and held out his hand. “Caleb Widogast, would you do me the honour?”  
Caleb was stunned. There had been very few times where he hadn’t taken Fjord’s hand before, regardless of where he was being led, and it was a tough habit to break.

“I really cannot dance,” he argued, but he was already putting his spoon down.  
“But you’ve never danced with _me_ ,” Fjord winked.

“And that is so special?” Caleb laughed. The words had been all he needed to take Fjord’s hand, enjoying the familiar roughened touch against his ink-stained fingers.

“Of course. I’m incredible.”

Fjord led him to the edge of where people were gathering to dance, arranging them carefully so his hand was on Caleb’s waist without getting too close to him. Caleb appreciated the gesture, resting his own hands on Fjord’s shoulders and hesitantly meeting his gaze.

“I should warn you now,” Fjord mumbled as they started to sway. “I lied. I’m not incredible.”

“I know,” Caleb laughed gently. “I have seen you dance with Jester before.”

He closed the gap between them and rested his head on Fjord’s chest, an action he had missed greatly since their first encounter with the mage.

Fjord was a little to clumsy to dance gracefully, far from elegant but making up for it with how endearing his dedication was. He knew it didn’t come naturally to him, but he wasn’t too concerned with what other people thought, especially when he finally had Caleb close.

“But you’re still here,” he observed, and Caleb could hear the smile in his voice without having to look up.  
“Yes.”

 


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Points if you spot the Buffy reference!

Lying in bed with his skin still feeling the soft touch of Fjord’s fingers as they’d danced earlier in the evening, Caleb’s mind sifted through everything he’d studied in the Cobalt Soul archives so far. He was more desperate than ever to get back to the life they’d had before and the only tools he had to do that were words on a page, if only he could find the right ones. His mind drifted to something Fjord had said. _A spell that removes all the memories of someone you love._ What if he’d been focusing on the wrong part of that sentence. Maybe it wasn’t so much memory that was key, maybe it was love. Slamming shut the book open idly on his lap in front of him, drawing a confused grumble from a mostly-sleeping Nott, he headed for the hallway and was banging insistently on Beau’s door before he knew what he was doing.

“What the ever-loving fuck, Caleb?” Beau growled, scrubbing sleep from her eyes and calling him out by name before even having her door fully open. There was only one person who was currently desperate enough to risk her wraith in the middle of the night.

“The archives, I need to go. Now,” Caleb demanded, not thinking slowly enough for manners.

“They’re not open,” she explained, barely holding on to her patience. “You can wait until morning.”

“No. I think I have got it. I think I understand where to look.”

Beau was having none of it. She slammed the door in his face.

“You’ve gone a month without him, you can wait one more night,” she said sternly through the wooden panels.

She definitely hadn’t meant for it to be as painful a comment as it was when it found the still open wound in his heart that had been gouging itself deeper and deeper over the past month. But she had a point – Fjord would still be there in the morning. The archives would still be there in the morning. One more night wouldn’t kill him.

He didn’t get one second of sleep. It would be impossible to expect him to be able to close his eyes when he was buzzing with the potential for everything to _finally_ be solved. The moment he saw a ray of light crest the horizon outside the window, he was back at Beau’s door and this time she couldn’t bring herself to send him away again. Kissing Yasha goodbye, she pulled her cape around herself and allowed Caleb to half drag her to the archives. Aside from using her to gain entry, he barely acknowledged her existence, heading straight for the love spell books and scanning the titles to pull out anything that sounded remotely linked to his most recent idea. By the time he had as many books as he could carry, he lugged them back to the table.

He’d been slowly losing hope as he’d gone through the old memory books for the second time, combing over anything the rest of the party might have missed, but now there was renewed determination behind his eyes as he pulled a book entitled _Love and How to Control It_ towards him and started to read.

A third of the way through, things started to get very familiar. So familiar that Caleb’s heart was beating out of his chest and he couldn’t stay sat in his chair and paced the room, carrying the huge tome with him. By the time he’d finished the chapter, he knew this was it. He’d found it.

Taking out his dagger, he carefully sliced down the vellum as close to the binding as possible so it wouldn’t be too obvious a page had been removed. His hands were shaking but the cut was clean enough and he was rolling the paper up and hiding it up his sleeve before anyone could have seen him. He re-shelved the books on the table only so no one could potentially link the now defaced tome to his studying, and hightailed out of the library in the direction of The Leaky Tap, grabbing Beau from where she was napping in the corner as he left.

Barrelling into the taproom of the bar, Caleb looked around for Fjord and, not seeing him, he barged up stairs. He made it up to Molly and Fjord’s room and knocked frantically. When a somewhat sleep-dishevelled Fjord opened it, Caleb forgot everything he’d planned to say on the way over there. Beau was still behind him asking questions, but he didn’t have time to answer any of them.

“I… I might have worked it out,” he managed.

Fjord blinked at him, not awake enough to fully comprehend what was being frantically communicated to him. Beau, slightly more awake, caught on more quickly.  
“You can fix him?” she asked tentatively, not wanting to instil false hope just in case.  
“Maybe,” Caleb sighed, containing his optimism as much as he could.  “I do not want to presume…”

The very notion of what Caleb was suggesting was enough to have Fjord fully alert. He made careful eye contact, wanting to keep both of them calm.  
“What is it?” he asked, needing to understand what was going on with his brain.  
“There is an extremely powerful memory modification spell, an incredibly cruel one.” Caleb could attest to that. “The target forgets the one person they… they love most in the world.”  
“Oh,” Fjord said, blushing a little and breaking the eye contact he’d worked hard to make. His bare feet were suddenly extremely interesting.  
Beau snorted. “It’s definitely that.”

“Hear hear,” Molly called, sitting up in his bed behind Fjord and rubbing sleep from his eyes.

Both Caleb and Fjord ignored their friends, focusing on the very tangible possibility that they could finally fix things.  
“Can you reverse it?” Fjord asked desperately.

Caleb nodded shyly.

“If it is what I think it is, then yes. There is a ritual spell that should end the effect.”

Reaching out to take Caleb’s hand, slowly so he could always pull away if he needed, Fjord squeezed it tightly.

“Then try it.”

*

They shooed Molly out of the room, not wanting an audience for this whether it went right or wrong, and Caleb fetched his backpack and rifled through for the spell components he needed. He constantly referenced the page he’d stolen, needing to get this right.

“You need to just sit still while I do this, ja? Please do not talk or interrupt me, I just need to-” Caleb rambled, nervous he didn’t have the skill level to do this. From his careful read-throughs, it was complicated spell work.

“I understand,” Fjord promised earnestly. “You do whatever you need to do.”

The last step of preparation was to join them together with lethe’s bramble. The instructions called for a braided rope of the flower, which Caleb tried to make as carefully as his shaking hands would let him. He tentatively reached out to clasp Fjord’s forearm with non-dominant hand so he could still draw runes, winding his shoddily made braid around their hands. Picking up on his obvious anxiety, Fjord spoke for what he told himself would be the last time before he let Caleb get on with the spell.

“Hey, it’s going to be okay,” he whispered, tracing reassuring circles on Caleb’s arm where they were touching. “I love you, darlin’. No matter what.”

He meant every word. Even if this didn’t go quite as they both hoped, he had every intentions of asking Caleb out on a proper date and slowly rebuilding what he’d lost, because this awkward wizard was sweet and determined and loving, and Fjord never wanted to be without him.

“I love you, too,” Caleb managed, voice wavering just a little as he offered Fjord a tiny smile before slipping into Serious Spellcaster Mode and beginning to trace the runes that the ritual demanded.

It took half an hour to cast the spell and Caleb wasn’t really sure what to expect. He didn’t know if the memories would slowly return to Fjord, or if it would happen all at the end of the spell, or if it would even work at all. As he started to recite the incantation the book demanded, he felt his soul get pulled into another plane, a higher level of consciousness where he could see the connections between them. Silvery threads spilled out of each of their hearts, reaching out in every direction. Some hung limply, severed from whoever they’d been tied to, but dozens of others shone with varied levels of brightness, active and healthy tethers to the people they both loved. The brightest thread, thick enough to be a rope, connected Caleb and Fjord’s hearts together, but a black bead sat in the middle, choking it tightly. The dark energy emanating from it was enough to make Caleb want to look away, but he forced himself to focus and inspect it, sensing that it was the cause of all the pain they’d had to endure.

Caleb could hear his conscious body continuing to recite invocations even as his extra-planar form reached out for the bead and crushed it in his fist, freeing the pure silver beneath and feeling the pulse of energy that could once again travel down the thread. He pulled himself back to his physical form as quickly as possible, carefully watching Fjord to see if it had worked.

Fjord had never felt fear like watching Caleb try to undo the mage’s work. Dragons, hydras, crazy sea ghosts – they all had nothing on this. The seed of worry that it wouldn’t work burned painfully in his mind and he felt helpless as Caleb’s eyes lit up with their regular spark of magic and, even as his lips kept moving, he seemed to slump forward a little like he wasn’t fully there. Fjord just sat and watched, keeping quiet as he had promised. Until, all at once, everything came back.

He was suddenly flooded with the memories he’d heard of from Molly or Jester or Nott or even from Caleb – remembering them for himself for the first time in weeks. Even memories no one had thought to tell him - the first time Caleb had ever taken his hand in public. The time he’d had to pose as Jester’s husband to get them into a party and Caleb had pouted the entire time. That night when they’d retired to an inn and Caleb had left a hickey on his neck for the first time, higher than could be easily covered by a shirt. It was overwhelming to feel every emotion he’d ever felt for Caleb all at once but the vast majority of them were positive and so many boiled down to pure love. He was struck too dumb to move.

Watching as Fjord’s eyes went wide and his body froze, Caleb wasn’t sure if everything had gone as planned.

“Fjord…?” he asked, tentatively. He was afraid to hope.

The words washed way Fjord’s shock, replacing it with an immense need to have Caleb close. He tried to reach out and pull him into a hug, forgetting they were still joined by the Lethe’s Bramble rope and towing Caleb’s arm awkwardly along with his own. Laughing through the tears collecting in his eyes, he shook the rope away until he could hug Caleb properly. Caleb was crying too, hugging Fjord back and hiding his face against his shoulder. He’d been waiting for this for far too long and yet he’d still underestimated the intensity of emotion he’d feel looking into the eyes of the man he loved and finding recognition again. When Fjord could finally bring himself to let go enough to pull back, he found pure relief behind Caleb’s tears.

“Hi,” he whispered, resting their foreheads together. It was impossible to stop smiling.

“ _Hallo_ ,” Caleb replied, laughter bubbling up under the word.

It had been a long time since Fjord had kissed Caleb, but he hadn’t realised how much he missed it until he got the memories back of all the kisses they’d had before. Now he knew what his life had been lacking for a couple of months, and that needed rectifying. So he lifted Caleb’s chin with his knuckle and brushed their lips together as gently as he could manage. He was waiting for Caleb to okay this before he went any further, just in case. Almost immediately, Caleb was kissing him back with enthusiasm enough to make up for all their lost time. Fjord found himself knocked to the ground and he was grinning almost too much to kiss as he wrapped his arms around Caleb’s waist to keep him steady.

Caleb couldn’t help his eagerness. He hadn’t let himself do this is so long, terrified of how alien it would feel to kiss a Fjord who was basically a stranger. But now Fjord knew exactly how to kiss him, holding him close and winding fingers into his hair as he mumbled nonsensical promises against his lips. As much as Caleb wanted to keep doing this him forever, they needed to talk and that was difficult when his lips were otherwise occupied. He trailed off his kisses into brief pecks until Fjord pressed his lips to his forehead and held him tight against his chest.  
“I’m so sorry. I can’t believe I forgot it all,” he mumbled.

He sounded genuinely horrified, hugging Caleb even tighter like he couldn’t bear to let go.  
“It was a spell, nothing you could control,” Caleb said, trying to brush it off. No matter how horrible the experience had been, only one person was to blame and that person was now ash and cinders.  
“But still…” Fjord’s fingertips found the base of Caleb’s neck where he’d pressed the sharp point of his Falchion all those weeks ago. He felt hot shame course down his spine. “I hurt you.”  
“No. _Nein._ You did not hurt me,” Caleb protested.

Fjord hummed once before amending his statement.  
“I threatened you.”

“They are not the same thing.”  
“Still…”

Refusing to let his lover accept the blame, Caleb spun it a different way.

“You were trying to protect the others.” When Fjord had no response, Caleb let himself smile again, tracing abstract patterns of his chest as he recalled the exact wording the spell had used to describe the effect. “You love me the most out of everyone in the world.”  
“Guess I do,” Fjord shrugged, pressing a kiss to the top of Caleb’s head before wrinkling his nose.

“Okay the first thing we’re doing is washing your hair.”  
“Shut up.”

 

*

They didn’t immediately get up and order a bath, instead opting to stay put on the floor for just a while longer so they didn’t have to leave each other’s company even for a moment. Eventually their friends’ curiosities got the better of them and there was a knock at the door.

“Caleb? Is everything okay?”

It was Nott, concerned about him as ever.

“Everything is fine,” Caleb called back, not really wanting to be disturbed quite yet. He was busy enjoying Fjord’s company again after so long.

He shouldn’t have underestimated the nosiness of his friends. Nott might have listened to the not-so-subtle undertones of Caleb’s desire to be left alone, but Jester wasn’t quite as tactful.

“Are you having sex?” she called loudly, with no respect for the fact they were at a public tavern where other people could very obviously hear.  
“Do you think if we say yes, she’ll go away?” Fjord stage whispered, his lips pressed against Caleb’s temple.  
“Probably not,” Caleb smiled. He knew their friend far too well.

“I can hear you,” came another shout through the door, and both Fjord and Caleb dissolved into a freeing laughter neither of them had been able to access in weeks.

*

They did eventually leave the room and venture back into their friends’ company, even if it was mostly to reorganise room distribution so they didn’t have to share with Molly or Nott and Jester. Caleb wasn’t quite sure which would be worse.

Talked into going downstairs for a meal, Caleb sat beside Fjord and tried to focus on keeping his eyes open. The long nights of research and month of emotional torture had caught up to him and he could feel exhaustion setting in. He was moments away from falling face first into his bowl, which was half full despite Fjord’s best attempts to convince him to eat, and had to keep blinking himself awake every couple of seconds.

“Go up, darlin’,” Fjord mumbled, “I’ll only be a minute or two, I promise.”

He gestured to the almost finished glass of whiskey in front of him. Caleb nodded and climbed shakily to his feet, most of his energy knocked out of him. As much as he wanted to stay as close to Fjord as possible, especially now, he didn’t want anyone to have to carry him up to bed. He had just reached the bottom of the stairs when he realised something. Whenever he would leave a table or a fire pit before, he would kiss Fjord goodbye or goodnight. It had become a muscle memory, something he’d worked hard to train out of himself when Fjord had forgotten him, and it seemed like he’d done too good of a job. Hating the idea of the mage’s spell still having its dark tendrils threaded through his life, Caleb turned himself around and headed back to the table they’d all occupied in the corner.

“Everything okay?” Fjord asked when he felt Caleb’s had on his shoulder.  
“Yeah, I just…” Caleb mumbled, leaning over to give Fjord a kiss. The angle was awkward but it wasn’t meant to be deep or sincere, just a little token of affection and a promise that there was always more to come later down the line. Fjord seemed to understand the gesture, smiling against Caleb’s lips before giving him a gentle kiss back.

“Awww,” Jester cooed, resting her chin on her hands.

Fjord downed the rest of his drink in one gulp before standing up and taking Caleb’s hand.

“Okay, let’s go,” he said, gesturing to the stairs. The idea of spending a night with Caleb curled up at his side was incredibly appealing, especially now he could properly contextualise all the nights they’d both spent alone over the past month.

Caleb seemed happy for the support, sleepily resting his head on Fjord’s shoulder as he was led to the stairs. He didn’t mind the idea of waiting a little for Fjord to come to bed, but he definitely wasn’t about to complain about being joined immediately. There was plenty he’d been dreaming about doing over the past month that a bed was very helpful for, but he was too tired to do any of it without a long night sleep first. And, if he’d learned anything over the past month, it was that he slept a lot better with his lover at his side – something he was never going to go without again, he’d make sure of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's all she wrote! I hope you enjoyed this - I'm so glad I got to finish it. Merry Christmas ^.^

**Author's Note:**

> The number of chapters this fic will have is strongly dependent on how much I want to make Caleb suffer...


End file.
